How Red Bull Racing have fared so far in the 2011 Formula 1 season?
The 2011 Formula 1 season is well and truly alive and so far, Red Bull Racing have dominated the entire pack.
Red Bull Racing team’s progress is very dominating among the other strong teams of Formula 1 after the first five rounds of the 2011 season. Both of their drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber have made impressive runs over the first five races so far.
After completing the pre-season testing in 2011, the team kicked off to quite a strong season. At the season opening Australian Grand Prix, Vettel won the race after he successfully finished both the Friday practice sessions and qualifying round. His teammate
Webber ended his race in the fifth spot after starting the race from the third place on the grid.
After the Australian GP, Red Bull went in for the Malaysian Grand Prix without the Kinetic Energy Recovery System. It was very difficult for both the drivers to move on the grid without it, but they really worked hard and again posted their best result on
the result sheets.
The Malaysian GP was very lucky for Vettel, where he secured his pole position in the qualifying round for the race and then retained it on the race day as well. He won his second race in Sepang while his teammate Webber finished fourth.
In the following Chinese Grand Prix, the current world champion Vettel finished in the second spot behind Lewis Hamilton of McLaren-Mercedes due to a bad pitstop strategy. On the other hand, Webber managed his first podium finish in the season, despite struggling
with his KERS.
In the following Turkey Grand Prix, the 23-year-old German won his third race of the season, while his teammate Webber finished second, giving Red Bull Racing a perfect 1-2 finish.
The recent Spanish Grand Prix was a bit difficult for both the drivers, as the German was unable to activate his car’s KERS during the Qualifying round. On the other hand, his 34-year-old teammate Webber had a positive Qualifying, where he topped the grid
in session two.
The raceday proved to be challenging for Red Bull since they were pushed all the way by the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. However, Vettel successfully managed his fourth win of the season in Barcelona without using KERS. Webber was 47.9
seconds off the pace and ended the race in the fourth place.
The RB7’s pace has been quite good in the season so far. Red Bull’s technical team led by Adrian Newey has done a wonderful job so far. They have worked really hard over the first five race weekends and have delivered various upgrades to the car.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner recently discussed the team’s race progress and said, “We managed to have a phenomenal qualifying here and, as we saw in China, McLaren pushed us hard there. They were competitive in the race and they were not competitive
two weeks ago in Turkey. It tends to see-saw.”
Defending champion Vettel is leading the drivers’ championship with 118 points while his teammate Webber is in the third place with 67 points.
Red Bull’s progress in the season so far has showed that the team has a lot of potential to defend their titles in the ongoing campaign. Let’s see if they manage to do that.
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